Time-off requests that block the schedule

> Cost: Paid. Homebase plans run $30 (Essentials), $70 (Plus) or $120 (All-in-One) per location per month, and payroll is an add-on at $49 a month plus $6 per employee paid ($29 for teams up to 5). Basic is free only for one location and up to 10 employees.

Honest note: Rules, with one caveat. This is a vendor customer story (Homebase), so figures are vendor-reported. The six hours a week is the owner's own estimate (two days at about three hours each reconciling texts and emails, which does add up to six), and the "on time 37% of the time" line is an example of how the report is used, not a result. The story calls its schedule draft "auto-scheduling"; Homebase's pricing page markets a Plus-plan "AI-powered Scheduling Assistant," but its own help page describes the draft as built from your last published schedule, availability and time off, so treat it as a rules-based draft you review, not a decision-maker. Labor-law flag: if your city has a fair-workweek (predictive scheduling) law, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, NYC or Oregon, schedules usually must be posted well ahead (often 14 days) and late changes can carry extra pay; building from a template does not change that.

Prerequisites

• A Homebase account on Plus (the time-off controls and Scheduling Assistant are Plus). Homebase: Basic is free for 1 location and up to 10 employees; Essentials $30, Plus $70, All-in-One $120 per location per month; payroll is an add-on at $49/month plus $6 per employee paid.
• Every team member on the app with their own login.
• A rule you will state to staff for how far ahead time off must be requested.

Step-by-step setup

Step 1. Staff request time off in the app. Tell staff to open the Homebase app, tap More (iPhone, bottom right) or the three-line menu (Android), then Requests → Time Off → +, choose the day or hours and a category, and tap Submit (Homebase's "How to Request Time Off"). On the web the same button is Request Time Off under Upcoming Time Off on the dashboard. Managers with the right team permission approve or deny under Team → Time Off; approved requests appear on the schedule on their own.

Step 2. Let the schedule check for conflicts. In Shifts → Schedule, when you assign a shift that overlaps a request Homebase's Schedule Builder shows a Pending time off conflict and asks you to approve or decline the request first. You can also add time off yourself: in the cell click + → Time Off → category, reason, note, date range → Add (time off added in the schedule applies without publishing).

Step 3. Start the week from a template or draft. Build a good week once, then in the schedule open Tools → Manage Templates, name it and click Create; later pick the template for a new week and click Apply. Or open an empty week and click Recommended Schedule under Jumpstart your schedule (or Tools → Draft schedule) to generate a draft from your last published week, then edit it. Click Publish and choose who gets notified.

Step 4. Open shifts and notes. To let staff claim extra shifts, click + in an empty cell of the Open Shifts row, fill in the shift and Publish; staff are emailed and you approve claims by clicking the open shift, turning the team member on and clicking Approve. Add a shift note so the person knows what to expect.

Step 5. Use the on-time report. Go to Operations → Reports and open On-Time Arrival before an attendance check-in, and pull up the numbers for that person rather than saying "you are always late."

Homebase has no official connector that I could verify (a third-party MCP server exists, but it is not Homebase's own), so the steps below are done by hand in Homebase.

What success looks like

The text and email requests stop, you can see every request in one place, and you build a week in minutes from a template. Track your own scheduling hours for two weeks before and after instead of expecting six.

Common issues & fixes

• Staff still text you: reply with "please put it in the app"; the story's owners did exactly that.
• No Time Off menu for you: your account needs the approve-time-off team permission or the Plus plan.
• Draft schedule puts someone on a bad day: the draft uses availability on file; ask staff to update availability (More → Requests → Availability).

Optional: Maintenance

• Weekly: review the on-time report before check-ins.
• Monthly: refresh the template for seasonal changes.

Copy-paste prompt

Use this prompt with any AI chat to draft your staff rule.

Write a short staff message for a small [BUSINESS TYPE] explaining our time-off rule: requests go in the Homebase app at least [NUMBER] days ahead, approved requests block the schedule, and texts or emails are not accepted. Friendly, under 120 words, no legal claims.

Sources

• Case: Homebase customer story: tea shop and community space with two locations. Credit: a co-owner of a two-location tea shop (vendor customer story)
• Homebase pricing
• Homebase help: How to Request Time Off
• Homebase help: Schedule Builder
• Homebase help: How to Add & Edit Shifts in the Schedule
• Homebase help: How to Automatically Create a Schedule
• Homebase help: How to Create Open Shifts
• Homebase help: How to View Reports in Homebase
• Homebase: Predictive Scheduling Laws by State and City